Purple Bulleid anyone?

[Steamport Southport]

A glimpse of it here.

 

[SR71]

A question popped into my head this morning... When did Royal Blue become Royal Purple?

 

The streamliners A4 & Coronation/Dutchess classes were blue & silver and produced in honour of the coronation. Later LMS locos were crimson but none purple that I know of? So whether you like the colour or not is it that the monarch of the time gets to choose the royal colour?

[griffgriff]

just about tight.

[Ryde-on-time]

This was a shot taken with my iphone on Friday, I think it’s a reasonable representation of the colour, not fluorescent like some photos i have seen!

 

[Compound2632]

18 hours ago, Ryde-on-time said:

This was a shot taken with my iphone on Friday, I think it’s a reasonable representation of the colour, not fluorescent like some photos i have seen!

 

I haven't managed to track down an official specification for Platinum Jubilee purple but this and other photographs do appear to show a much lighter shade than one sees elsewhere, notably on the SVR's own photo mock-ups posted previously and on the Hornby model.

 

So I add my own note of discord - the full-size locomotive is less accurate than the model! 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Compound2632

[Blandford1969]

The person who was responsible went to the appropriate site to get the correct pantone to pass onto the paint manufacturer. However paint manufactures he said do not work in pantone so then they had to try to match paint samples to the image they were looking at. 

 

Whatever any of us  think of it, its to celebrate a unique event in all of our lives and it will go back to green at the tail end of the year. 

[Compound2632]

56 minutes ago, Blandford1969 said:

Whatever any of us  think of it, its to celebrate a unique event in all of our lives and it will go back to green at the tail end of the year. 

 

Ah but what shade? Would improved engine green be too much to hope for?

[Blandford1969]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah but what shade? Would improved engine green be too much to hope for?

At least BR green should be less controversial than is it the right shade of GWR green. 😀

[Oldddudders]

22 hours ago, Blandford1969 said:

The person who was responsible went to the appropriate site to get the correct pantone to pass onto the paint manufacturer. However paint manufactures he said do not work in pantone so then they had to try to match paint samples to the image they were looking at. 

 

Whatever any of us  think of it, its to celebrate a unique event in all of our lives and it will go back to green at the tail end of the year. 

ISTR when NSE, having painted the lamp-posts red, then extended this to other items the fact that Pantones could not be replicated in some other paint media became an issue. Or something like that - it is more than 30 years since the NSE architect explained it to me!

[Graham_Muz]

Pantone are print colours not paint references, so will always need converting into to equivalent paint colours such as RAL  or BS2660 etc 

There will often be more 'equivalent' Pantone colours than paint colours (see what happens if you use a online converter for some colours from Pantone to RAL and back to Pantone, you wont always end up back where you started) which is where some people (no names) have fallen foul of the wrong colour ending up on models (as model production often mixes paint and print)... 

[rodent279]

I've just remembered that it's not the first time TV has suffered the indignity of a fake livery & renaming. It went red as Hogwarts Castle back in the late 1990's. Here's a couple of photos of it at Leicester in October 2000, named "Santa's Express".

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by rodent279

[Blandford1969]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

I've just remembered that it's not the first time TV has suffered the indignity of a fake livery & renaming. It went red as Hogwarts Castle back in the late 1990's. Here's a couple of photos of it at Leicester in October 2000, named "Santa's Express".

 

 

 

 

Yes, we even used it on a book launch for one of the books, we had to arrive at Arley on the strike of midnight when the book was officially released. It looked smart in maroon too. 

[rodent279]

2 hours ago, Blandford1969 said:

Yes, we even used it on a book launch for one of the books, we had to arrive at Arley on the strike of midnight when the book was officially released. It looked smart in maroon too. 

It did look very smart, actually. Took a bit of getting used to, but BR LMR maroon as applied to Duchesses etc would have sat very well on it.

[Compound2632]

Next up:

[Hilux5972]

On 30/04/2022 at 07:11, Blandford1969 said:

Yes, we even used it on a book launch for one of the books, we had to arrive at Arley on the strike of midnight when the book was officially released. It looked smart in maroon too. 

The book launch was the whole point of painting it maroon if I remember correctly. 

[KeithHC]

I’ve worked out why it has been painted. It’s so that it could go down the Crossrail tunnels to check the smoke alarms and sprinkler systems.

 

Keith

[Reorte]

Why this particular loco and not, say, Leander or Bahamas?

 

I'll get my coat.

[stewartingram]

5 hours ago, Reorte said:

Why this particular loco and not, say, Leander or Bahamas?

 

I'll get my coat.

Or to put it another way:

 

Why not the Bulleid?

[3rd Rail Exile]

18 hours ago, Reorte said:

Why this particular loco and not, say, Leander or Bahamas?

 

I'll get my coat.

 

13 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Or to put it another way:

 

Why not the Bulleid?

 

Because we're commemorating a Platinum Jubilee, not a Platinum West Country... 

 

Either way, I must try to get to the SVR to see it before it returns to green. 

[Compound2632]

18 hours ago, Reorte said:

Why this particular loco and not, say, Leander or Bahamas?

 

Or an A4. The 5XPs were only coincidentally associated with George V's silver jubilee,, with one opportunistically turned out with polished boiler bands etc., but the first A4s were built specifically for a train named in honour of it. Now if one or all of the surviving A4s had been painted in the Silver Jubilee style but in purple rather than silver, that would have been a fitting tribute.

 

But just imagine the length of the RMWeb topic!

[Mallard60022]

That Maroon livery version looks excellent. I hadn't seen that before.

I liked the Duchesses in that Livery too. Still do.

P

[wombatofludham]

I've just seen Brenda's Bulleid on the SVR live webcam, and when it arrived at Bewdley there were a lot of old presumably fare-paying passengers getting their photos next to the loco, all of which suggests the SVR knew exactly what they were doing when they painted it.  Thing is the SVR is in the entertainment business more than the preservation hobby so the publicity this repaint got is worth more than the cost of the repaint and a few moans from some enthusiasts who can't see the wood for the trees.

I also noted the two other trains on the timetable are diesel hauled.  Don't recall that being normal so presumably a result of the steam coal shortage?

[Blandford1969]

7 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

I've just seen Brenda's Bulleid on the SVR live webcam, and when it arrived at Bewdley there were a lot of old presumably fare-paying passengers getting their photos next to the loco, all of which suggests the SVR knew exactly what they were doing when they painted it.  Thing is the SVR is in the entertainment business more than the preservation hobby so the publicity this repaint got is worth more than the cost of the repaint and a few moans from some enthusiasts who can't see the wood for the trees.

I also noted the two other trains on the timetable are diesel hauled.  Don't recall that being normal so presumably a result of the steam coal shortage?

The SVR is very much Preservation. It is a fact that reports continue to show the West Midlands is not an area people think about coming to so the railway decided to do something to take advantage of and celebrate the Jubilee and try to attract people who might not ordinarily visit us.

 

Yes we want people to have a good day out, however to say we are in the entertainment business more than preservation suggests you did not take note of various things such as the Stove R at Highley completely rebuilt with an explanation of how it was used and of the restoration of the viaduct at Kidderminster. You cannot have noticed the work going on at Hampton Loade to restore the station to a 1930s appearance with lamps being changed to be more historically accurate, nor have seen the diesel depot (better than many on the network according to Peter Hendy when he opened it) allowing maintenance and restoration of the diesels to an even higher standard, nor the work of the Bewdley waggon team continuing to restore our waggons, or the S&T who have just completely replaced the bracket at Bewdley South . If we were in the entertainment business why bother with those things, put in colour lights, do the lowest level of restoration possible to keep things moving. 

 

In terms of services due to the coal situation both on availability and cost it was decided to cut back on steam services to protect our supplies for the Christmas period which at that period of late November and December you could fairly say is more about entertainment using the train to take people to that whatever it might be. 

 

. If we were about entertainment then you would not have seen the quality of coach or loco restorations going back and making sure they are accurate to the period.

 

As was said further up the posts this repaint was paid for by the owner, at no cost to the railway.  Based purely on what I saw during one shed turn when shunting all day and could not help but notice more people on the station than normal, and on each train that pulled in people were clearly looking out for a glimpse of it. It has also been in the Telegraph, on BBC news, is involved in the torch relay for the Commonwealth games so really is helping to get the message out there.

 

[Northmoor]

33 minutes ago, Blandford1969 said:

The SVR is very much Preservation. It is a fact that reports continue to show the West Midlands is not an area people think about coming to so the railway decided to do something to take advantage of and celebrate the Jubilee and try to attract people who might not ordinarily visit us.

 

Yes we want people to have a good day out, however to say we are in the entertainment business more than preservation suggests you did not take note of various things such as the Stove R at Highley completely rebuilt with an explanation of how it was used and of the restoration of the viaduct at Kidderminster. You cannot have noticed the work going on at Hampton Loade to restore the station to a 1930s appearance with lamps being changed to be more historically accurate, nor have seen the diesel depot (better than many on the network according to Peter Hendy when he opened it) allowing maintenance and restoration of the diesels to an even higher standard, nor the work of the Bewdley waggon team continuing to restore our waggons, or the S&T who have just completely replaced the bracket at Bewdley South . If we were in the entertainment business why bother with those things, put in colour lights, do the lowest level of restoration possible to keep things moving. 

 

In terms of services due to the coal situation both on availability and cost it was decided to cut back on steam services to protect our supplies for the Christmas period which at that period of late November and December you could fairly say is more about entertainment using the train to take people to that whatever it might be. 

 

. If we were about entertainment then you would not have seen the quality of coach or loco restorations going back and making sure they are accurate to the period.

 

As was said further up the posts this repaint was paid for by the owner, at no cost to the railway.  Based purely on what I saw during one shed turn when shunting all day and could not help but notice more people on the station than normal, and on each train that pulled in people were clearly looking out for a glimpse of it. It has also been in the Telegraph, on BBC news, is involved in the torch relay for the Commonwealth games so really is helping to get the message out there.

 

 

To be fair to @Blandford1969, they didn't say the SVR was in one and not the other, they said:

 

34 minutes ago, Blandford1969 said:

the SVR is in the entertainment business more than the preservation hobby

 

I'm a life SVRA member myself and would completely endorse all the examples you've given of the line's preservation activities.  Most of those can only be funded because the SVR is an extremely well-run entertainment business; there must be a very small proportion of visitors whose aim is to be something other than entertained.  There is nothing shameful in this; if as you say they only had the bare minimum heritage infrastructure and then tried to pretend you got a day out "just like in the old days of steam", then that would be dishonest.

 

Many years ago, a SVR Chairman - can't remember which one - was asked if the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway was it's biggest competitor.  They replied saying no, that position was probably held by Merry Hill Shopping Centre.

[wombatofludham]

Of course the SVR is in preservation - it is one of the few railways to have rakes of pre-nationalisation stock in regular service which I think is excellent, after all once on the train you don't actually know if you are being pulled by a steam loco or a horse, but in a historic carriage, you experience a whole ambience - but it isn't a stuffed and mounted museum.  It is a visitor attraction, and gets awarded money as such.  Let's be honest, the original Severn Valley railway wouldn't have had long trains behind main line engines (wartime excepted),  with buffet cars, Sunday luncheon trains, pubs on the station, Santa trains or actors dressing up to entertain visitors catching the train, so I would argue that the SVR is more involved in the entertainment business than preservation.  To be honest, if it wasn't, the money would soon dry up for restoration and keeping the operation going.

The SVR is doing a lot of good things, getting locos back on the rails, helping bring on a new generation of young people with practical skills to keep the line and the preservation of rolling stock going into the future.  None of which is belittled by being part of the entertainment sector if it pays the bills.